June in Marin: No Swoon in Site For Home Sales As Buyers Scramble to Lock In Prices and Mortgages

It’s June in Marin County and summer is on its way. The hills are still green from the March rains and the kids are getting ready to leave school for some summer fun. Nothing like Marin (or all of California) in the summer. I grew up here and the weather is near-perfect for outdoor activities of all kinds. It’s never too hot or too cold for the beaches, the bay, hiking, biking, walking, or just lazing about. Stay locally, go to Tahoe, LA, San Diego or even Hawaii, it’s all good for a great summer break.

What we aren’t seeing, however, is much of a break for Marin home buyers. I’ve heard the phrase “we want to lock in…” from buyers several times this year already. That would be their sales price, to basically fix their property tax figure and a mortgage interest rate to literally fix that also. As The Fed held interest rates steady last month, many buyers saw that as a sign for them to likely raise at the next meeting or sooner. So smart home seekers are becoming home buyers quickly, grabbing fixed interest rates (usually a 10 year or 30 year term) so they know what they have to pay each month going forward. More importantly, they’re locking in a price on an asset that is very likely just going up in value as more people pour into the state and attempt to somehow move to Marin for our excellent quality of life. But more on that now.

Besides out of area buyers, we are seeing a LOT of them coming over from San Francisco. Our average sale price around $1.5 mil isn’t cheap, but it is to these people, where that barely gets you a condo in many areas. They come over here, see a nice yard, sidewalks, parks, schools and shops often within walking distance and they go, “We’ll take it!” With high rise construction only continuing there and no way to widen the roads, they are also escaping likely future gridlock downtown and on the waterfront areas, so Marin must look pretty attractive to them.

Going forward, we’ll see, but there’s no slow down in sight for the move upwards of appreciation. No matter what buyers are paying now, it will seem cheap down the road, just as it’s been for nearly all of my 30 + years of doing this. Besides a few down or flat years during the national mortgage meltdown, prices have always moved up here, slowly and methodically in the 5%-9% range usually, though the lesser priced ranges of any town are higher than that, more like 10%-15%. So “lock in” may be very wise, indeed.

That’s it for now. Enjoy June wherever you are. Any real-time questions though, let me know what I can do to help. Thanks for reading and here’s to a great 2018 for all of us.

TS

Text or call 415.377.5222 or ted@gomarin.com

Filed under: Marin Real Estate Blog by Ted Strodder